What is Onboarding Exactly?

Do you expect that your new hires will leave within 12 months? Do you annually budget for turnover expenses to replace terminated new hires? If you answered yes to either question, then keep reading.

From the initial welcome, human resources paperwork, job understanding and expectations, ramp up, and so much more, the onboarding process can become really frustrating – and if handled poorly, it can increase turnover rate.

Monster.com reports 30 percent of external new hires turn over within the first two years of employment. Retention statistics from other organizations, including the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), show that turnover can be as much as 50 percent in the first 18 months of employment.

Two decades ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average number of jobs held in one person’s career was six. Today, the average number of jobs held is 11. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost for replacing an employee is over 25 percent of their annual salary (some say 50 percent), so it is very costly when you don’t get it right.

These are great reasons for examining the success of your onboarding processes. Now let’s dig into what it involves.

Onboarding is more than just new hire orientation. Onboarding is a process. Orientation is an event – the first step in the onboarding process. The orientation step allows you to collect all relevant human resources, payroll and benefits forms.

The onboarding process helps you to develop a happy contributor. Onboarding conveys your organizational brand and values, explains your people and professional culture, aligns institutional expectations and performance and provides the tools for the employee to successfully assimilate into his or her position with a quicker ramp-up to productivity.

A sound onboarding process spans 1-2 years and includes constant communication, feedback, and performance measurement — all keys to employee longevity and loyalty. Onboarding follows the employee lifecycle for mentoring and development and includes automation for consistent and timely tracking of onboarding events. Seamlessly transitioning the candidate through the new hire and onboarding experience, then into the performance management process matriculates the new employee and ensures success.

If you don’t have a successful onboarding process and you’re losing employees due to non-engagement, PeopleAdmin can help you develop an onboarding strategy and ensure immediate success.